Seeing as finals are in full swing, I figured what was a better use of my time than to post a reflection blog on my most thought-provoking class this semester. (Mom and Dad, I had it written way earlier, I’m just posting it now. Pinky promise.)

My life this past week preparing for finals and writing final papers. P.S. I love that my Bible is required to do some of my homework.

History and Literature of the New Testament is one of my most challenging classes this semester. Not because I don’t understand the material and do poorly on the tests, on the contrary I understand the material quite well and have done very well on the papers and exams. The struggle I have is that being the naïve freshman who I am, when I was searching for classes in August, I saw this class about the New Testament and thought, “How cool is that? We will read the entire New Testament and it will be a great way to encourage me to be diligent about spending time in the word daily!” Without hesitation, I signed up.

On the first day, the professor asked us, “What is the difference between the Old and New Testaments?” I thought, “Oh goodie, I know the answer to this question.” I waited for other people to respond for a little and then raised my hand and said something to the effect of, “The Old Testament is the time leading up to Jesus’ birth, in which many prophecies and promises were made, and the New Testament is after Jesus’ birth, and it documents his ministry and the effects of it, as well as the promises and prophecies made in the Old Testament coming true in the New Testament.” My professor responded and said, “Well some people believe that, but it is a very theological view of it…When answering in this class it is important to avoid speaking with theologically based answers” She went on to tell us the right answer, which was pretty darn close to what I had said. After that class, I was in a quandary. How was I going to answer questions with the answer she was looking for, when I only knew one answer, which apparently was too steeped in Christian theology? How could I disassociate what I had learned and believe to be true from how I answer questions on the New Testament? Was I going to be graded down if I accidentally said something that was too theological?

She assigned a twelve page self inventory on the first day of class due in a week; by next class four people had dropped, leaving twelve students in the class. I seriously debated dropping it as well. Subsequently I talked to some of the people who dropped, and they said it was just going to be too hard for them to not speak theologically, plus the twelve page paper did not motivate them to stay in the class either. So one week in, I wasn’t alone in my doubt.

While I was completing the paper, I happened to google my professor, as I wanted to see if she was a contributor to the textbook we were using. What I found was overwhelming at first. My professor had been an Episcopalian priest who was defrocked in 2009, for becoming a Muslim in 2006. Reading on, I found an interview in which she stated, “I am both Muslim and Christian, just like I’m both an American of African descent and a woman. I’m 100 percent both.” I was so surprised. My first thought was, “How does that even work? The two religions are fundamentally different.” My thoughts then progressed to “Oh my goodness, I’m taking a New Testament class from someone who is both Muslim and Christian. We are very possibly going to have differing opinions on many topics. Should I drop it?” Farther down in the article it mentions that, “She calls Christianity the ‘world religion of privilege.’” After reading that, I was so bummed. Here I am, a white, female, Christian, from Southern California, going to a prestigious private school in Washington, with a professor who believes that Christianity is the religion of privilege. Based off of my appearance and my much too theologically based answer on the first day, I was sure she had a great opinion of me.

I debated about dropping the class for two weeks. I dreaded going to class and having to monitor how I participated in class for theological biases, when all I know is theologically based. I felt that it was slightly ironic, being at a liberal arts college that strives to be inclusive of all people and beliefs, that I had to make sure to not over share what I knew and believed to be true about the New Testament. The only nice thing was that I knew to take whatever she said, and for that matter, whatever was in the textbook, with a grain of salt, because the class wasn’t taught from a theological background, as I had naïvely expected it to be.

In the end, I decided to not drop the class. I felt like God led me to be in that class for some reason, whether to strengthen my own faith, or be a witness to others, or something completely different, I felt called to stay. I have no idea whether I will get graded down for my Christian upbringing coming out in my opinions in my papers, since we haven’t gotten any back yet. Who knows? All I know is that it will all work out somehow.

It has taken me almost an entire semester to realize the beauty of this class being taught on my campus. I don’t go to a Christian school, in fact, 4 years ago, it was almost the opposite. Four years ago, there was a group of about ten believers that met on campus for fellowship. There might have been more who didn’t show up, but then in a student body of 2,500 is a small minority. Now there are about 200 believers that meet regularly between the three Christian clubs on campus. God is moving on this campus, and I’m so glad to be up here and be a part of it.

Anyway, when talking with my mom about this class, she said, “Linds, this might be a challenging class for you, but think about it. There are people in your class that are reading the New Testament for the first time. God’s word is present in your class and you have no idea how He will use this opportunity to impact lives.” She helped me see the beauty in the class, even though it might be a trial for me. There are twelve people who meet twice a week for an hour and a half to discuss the history of the New Testament, all while reading the entire New Testament as required reading. We all come different faiths and walks of life, but each of us is reading the Bible. Going to class is so much more joyful and exciting once I put my perspective in line with God’s greater plan.

Guess what happened last night?
I read a book. For fun. Not a fun school related book, but a plain, unassigned, free reading book. For some reason, I had this urge to read a nice carefree book in bed. As I was walking to the library to obtain said books, I couldn’t even recall the last time I had read a book for pleasure. Where had my love of reading gone?

As a child, I was the kid at the library with a stack of books two feet tall, counting them to see if I had reached the checkout limit. I was addicted to reading. In the summer, my parents would have to limit the amount of time I spent reading so that I would go outside to play and be social. I loved that i could be transported to a whole new world and take on a whole new persona with the turn of a page, wherever I was.

My mom read to me almost every night until I was in high school and had to do homework until bedtime. Together we ventured to Narnia, became family to Jo, Meg, Beth and Amy, roamed the apple orchards with Anne, and lived on the prairie with Laura, Ma, and Pa, just to name a few of our endeavors. She would read from eight to eight thirty every night; we took turns on who would occasionally fall asleep halfway through; that’s when we knew it had been a long day. I loved that time. It was mommy and me time, our own special treat at the end of the day after my younger sister went to bed. Promptly at 8:30 she would stop reading and say, “Alright time for bed Linds.” And I would beg for just one more chapter, just one teeny, tiny chapter. She would look how long it was, and if it was short enough she would say, “If we read this, you will have to have no troubles getting up on time in the morning.” Of course I would readily agree; I would do anything for just one more chapter. Together we read over seven thousand pages, and I am eternally grateful to my mom for investing that time in me and helping me cultivate my love of reading.

Between reading at night with my mom, and reading by myself, I logged many hours as a bookworm during my childhood. Like I said I was addicted. But once I got into high school, assigned reading came like a thief in the night and stole my free reading time. Even on breaks, I either had assigned reading to do, or I was so burnt out from doing the readings before the break, I didn’t even want to think about reading more. And it got worse and worse every year. As more and more reading was forced upon me, the passion I had for reading faded dimmer and dimmer.

Not to say there wasn’t ever light in the dark tunnel of assigned reading. My initial love of reading helped keep a light burning, even when the material was thick and I didn’t understand it all. I still remember sophomore year reading A Tale of Two Cities, and learning about diction, syntax, tone, and all the usually boring parts of literary analysis. It clicked for me, and my inner book-lover and nerd came out. I loved thinking about why Dickens wrote the way he did, because as anyone who has ever read Dickens’ work knows; he has a very distinct voice. To this day, that is one of my favorite books. It was a light in my tunnel of literary analysis of assigned reading, a reminder of what I used to love. But alas, all good things must come to an end, and assigned reading became like a chore again.

Just like reading Tale of Two Cities reignited my love for the written word, summertime also was a time of relaxing with good books. Granted, most of the time I still had assigned reading to do, but at least for a couple of weeks I got to experience reading for the sheer fact of wanting to read once more. In the years before my grandma died, she began a quest to read the entire classics section. It was awesome when she was reading a book that I was reading for school, because we could discuss it and read it together. She made it through the entire classics section at the library, and inspired me to read more classics. Thus every summer, before our annual long camping trip I would go to the library, and pick up a stack of around seven classics to read that trip. During the course of these trips, I noticed that I always gravitated towards the classics that were not commonly read in school. I couldn’t bring myself to read a book leisurely that was a “school book” no matter how great it was. I wanted to read a book that was clearly distinct from any book that had been or would eventually be a graded assignment.

Assigned reading didn’t make me stop reading forever. It also didn’t make me hate reading. But even for an avid reader, assigned reading slowly tortured my inner book-worm. I don’t know how it got that way. How did reading go from something I loved to a chore, as soon as it became associated with a grade or a homework assignment? Where was the point when reading became a monster?
I see it happening in my sister, as she is reading To Kill A Mockingbird, which if I might add, is an exceptional book, that I would read over and over, but she isn’t reading it because she wants to, she is reading it to answer questions to get a grade. Naturally when reading something to answer questions, regardless the subject, one will skim to find the information that pertains to the question and then move on. By doing so, one usually misses key information that makes the story enjoyable to read and less like homework. My sister likes to read, but not nearly as much as I did my freshman year, and I can see the enjoyment fading away as the books take on more weight than they were meant to hold.

I can’t imagine how it is for students who don’t like to read in the first place. Actually I can; those are the students that don’t even bother opening the book and if the teacher is lucky the student will Sparknote it to at least make it appear like they are reading. In doing so, they miss out on finding a favorite book or author, which might have led them to find a type of writing they enjoy reading.

It is not to say that assigned reading should be abolished. What I am trying to suggest is actually very far from that. Assigned reading exposes students to many different time periods, ways of life, styles of writing, etc. and provides great examples of how to write. But we aren’t all going to be novelists. Maybe we should add a little more article and essay reading into the curriculum, because in this digital age, isn’t that what the majority of what our students will be dealing with in their workplace, or even in their daily lives?

Will adding articles help students enjoy assigned reading more? Possibly, maybe it will help the slower readers have confidence, because it is a shorter piece of work. Will letting students read what they want to read help them like assigned reading better? Maybe. It might make it less of a drag and give each student the freedom to read material on what they are passionate about, or even find something they are passionate about. But then what does one do about grading? How does one grade an enthusiastic student who only likes to read, say cookbooks and travel guides? How does one encourage, if not require, the reading level to be grade appropriate? How can one tell if students are actually reading the books?

I don’t have a solution, I really don’t even have suggestions on how to attempt to fix this issue, but I do know that somewhere between freshman year of high school and freshman year of college, my love of reading was vastly diminished as a result of reading wonderful novels knowing that my future would be partially determined on how well I understood and could analyze the book. My understanding of the book led contributed to my grade in the class, which then played a huge factor in what colleges I got in to. Reading somehow got reduced to a means to an end, and because of this many have lost sight, at least temporarily, of what the simple joy of reading is, myself included.
To conclude, I have one question that must be addressed; how do we reclaim reading from being a means to the end, and return it to the simple joy that it brings?

One of my favorite teachers of all time wrote a blog post this weekend questioning the effectiveness of assigning summer homework and it was amazing. I suggest you all read it on his blog, The Readiness is All. At the end, he asks readers to share their thoughts in a comment or blog post response. In the beginning I was going to just leave a short comment and be on my way, but then I realized I had a lot more to say on the subject then would be courteous to leave in a comment. So here I am, blogging about summer homework, two-week into school. You would think my opinions would have died down after being in school for two weeks, but nope, I’m still really passionate in my displeasure about summer homework.

To start off, I have had summer homework in at least one class for the past three years. This past summer was amazing because college doesn’t have required summer homework(that I know of. Oh gosh, what if they do? Oh no.) and it was amazing. It was sharply contrasted by my sister’s summer in which she had three books to read for freshman honors english. Some might argue that the books weren’t super long or hard to read, but that isn’t the point.

The point is that she read all three books diligently and did not wait until the last-minute, but as the first day of school crept closer and closer, she got more and more stressed out. Talk about nerve-racking! Imagine starting a new school for the first time, one where everyone is bigger than you and there are a bazillion people everywhere. The stress of six new teachers, finding your classes, having somewhere to eat lunch, being able to find one’s friends in the sea of people, opening one’s locker…the list of stressors goes on and on. Then add the stress of an impending test and multiple essays to be done in class within the first week of school. Poor freshman, I did not want to be in her shoes.

The day before school started for her, I received probably 15 texts, 3 phone calls, and one long FaceTime call in which she was in tears, stressed about the test and essays. She was so nervous that she would fail and her teacher would think she was stupid and a failure, and even worse, have him think she didn’t even read the book. She had no idea what to expect except the teachers had given a list of nine essay prompts and said, “Be prepared to answer three of these in class on the first day of school.” I counseled her and told her that it would be extremely rare for a teacher(especially of freshman) to give a test on the first day because people are getting lost, coming in late, finding their assigned seat, etc. It just doesn’t work to give a test within those first fifty-six minutes. She still wanted to be prepared, so she set to writing an essay answering each of the prompts. She wrote three essays before I was able to convince her that if she felt that she needed to write the essays, to just write bullet points. She was so stressed.

I know teachers don’t sit around all summer thinking up new ways to torture their students(if they do, that’s a bigger problem than one of summer homework). So I would like to think that if they knew what summer homework put their students through, they might think twice about assigning it. Now I know, the reason summer homework is assigned is so that the class can hit the ground running and cover more material in the course of the year. There has only been ONE class that I have found this statement even partially true and the summer homework necessary. That class was AP Biology.

In AP Bio, we had four chapters to go over and do activities for on our own over the summer. It was all review from regular biology, which was a prerequisite so everyone completing the summer homework had taken it, AND we went over it all in class, so if anyone had questions they could get them answered. The only reason summer homework was assigned in the first place was that the AP test requires so much material to be covered, that one must start in the summer, just to have the time to cover all the required material adequately. Which is a whole other problem in itself. Why design a test in which all material cannot be covered within the school year? Oh well, that will have to be a completely separate blog post. The summer homework is justified in the extremely high pass rate that our school has on the AP Biology test.

What I don’t understand is assigned reading for English classes. And not to bash on the English department at my school; I enjoyed every English class I was in, but I still don’t understand the purpose of the summer reading homework they assign. I can only come up with two plausible reasons as to why summer reading homework would be assigned.

Reason One: The teachers want to scare of the faint of heart(in an academic sense). They don’t want to deal with students who don’t want to do the level of work required of a higher level English course. I don’t blame them. There have been many a time when I have been in class frustrated because some of my classmates did not want to put in the effort and work required of the class, thus unfortunately sometimes bringing the entire class down. I love being in a class with all academic thinking students just as much as a teacher like teaching one. When everyone is participating and putting something into the class, it transforms the class; discussions flow freely, group projects are no longer a pain, and the positives can go on forever. But I’m not so sure that assigned summer reading is going to solve that problem.

In fact, in assigning summer reading, one is more likely to scare away those students who are on the fence between excelling in a regular level English class and being challenged in an honors or AP class. You won’t scare away the students who are forced by their parents to take the upper level course, just to get into a “good college”. They will just read Sparknotes and take whatever grade they get on the first tests, because they don’t really care. You won’t scare away those kids that are naturally smart, but have no desire to put any effort into the course. All who get scared away are the timid ones, those unsure about their academic strength, but willing to put in the effort to get to that next level if needed.

Reason Two: Summer reading is important because it helps classes to cover more books in a year, which ultimately helps students on the AP Literature test as they will have more books to choose from when they are writing their free response essays. I’m pretty sure no teacher can wholeheartedly say this and believe it one hundred percent. No student in May of their senior year is going to recall a book they read over the summer before freshman year enough to write a fully developed essay on it. For one, it is highly likely that after reading that book over the summer, they took a test on it and never discussed it again. Which ultimately won’t help them on the AP test, because on the test one is required to examine the book on a deeper level than just knowing what the book was about. Class discussion of a book help set those themes in stone in a student’s mind, so that they can, hopefully, recall them when necessary. Also, speaking solely from my personal experience taking the AP Literature test; you read enough of a variety of books senior year that you can answer just about any prompt and relate it to one of the books read that year quite easily.

There are some many things students can do during the summer that would be way more worthwhile and thought-provoking than summer homework. I could list them out, but I think you get the picture. (If you need an idea of what I’m talking about, check out my previous blog post about what I did this summer!)

Just an example of one of the great things students could be doing instead of summer homework-enjoying the sunset!

In conclusion, I am going to echo the wise question of Mr. Theriault; why is summer homework still being assigned? If you have an answer, or see a reason for keeping it that I haven’t thought of, feel free to comment below!

Robert Fulghum wrote a poem back in 1990 titled All I Ever Needed to know I Learned in Kindergarten. In it he writes,

“These are the things I learned:

Share everything.

Play fair.

Don’t hit people.

Put things back where you found them.

Clean up your own mess.

Don’t take things that aren’t yours.

Say you’re sorry when you hurt somebody.

Wash your hands before you eat.

Flush.

Warm cookies and cold milk are good for you.

Live a balanced life – learn some and think some

and draw and paint and sing and dance and play

and work every day some.

Take a nap every afternoon.

When you go out into the world, watch out for traffic,

hold hands, and stick together.

Be aware of wonder.

Remember the little seed in the styrofoam cup:

The roots go down and the plant goes up and nobody

really knows how or why, but we are all like that.

Goldfish and hamsters and white mice and even

the little seed in the Styrofoam cup – they all die.

So do we.

And then remember the Dick-and-Jane books

and the first word you learned – the biggest

word of all – LOOK.

Everything you need to know is in there somewhere.

The Golden Rule and love and basic sanitation.

Ecology and politics and equality and sane living.

Take any of those items and extrapolate it into

sophisticated adult terms and apply it to your

family life or your work or your government or

your world and it holds true and clear and firm.

Think what a better world it would be if

all – the whole world – had cookies and milk about

three o’clock every afternoon and then lay down with

our blankies for a nap. Or if all governments

had a basic policy to always put thing back where

they found them and to clean up their own mess.

And it is still true, no matter how old you

are – when you go out into the world, it is best

to hold hands and stick together.”

As I was pondering what to do for my senior project and reflecting on the abundance of lessons I learned in high school; I realized I really wanted to write a letter similar to Fulghum’s poem to both freshman me looking back, and my sister as she is going to be a freshman next year. Here is what I came up with.

Dear Freshman me,

All you really will ever need to know, you’ll know.

and even on the perchance that you don’t know,

being the resourceful girl you are, obviously you’ll Google it.

Knowledge will not be found in the $100,000 of college tuition debt, but rather in the classroom, on the playing field, and in everyday life. These are the things you will learn by graduation day:

Everything is better with food.

Attitude is everything.

Find a couple of things you love and apply yourself to them.

YOLO is not the best way to make major life decisions.

Stress doesn’t get you anywhere in life.

A smile and a greeting can make a persons day.

Don’t give up; on people, on life, or in class.

Ask questions.

Don’t be afraid to stand up for yourself.

Dream big, because if you reach for the moon and miss you’ll land on a star.

Take risks.

Waiting until the night before to start anything is a bad idea.

Don’t be afraid of change, change is healthy.

Make friends, and “When you go out into the world, watch out for traffic, hold hands, and stick together”.

Family is everything. They have been yours from day one, and they will always love you. Appreciate them. Spend time with them. Savor those dinnertime moments, those times where you are laughing so hard it hurts. Soon you will be moving over 1000 miles away, eating dinner without your family; your presence at the dinner table thoroughly missed.

But take heart everything will be okay. You will still be able to Facetime, go home on the holidays, go on family camping trips, stay home for summer, and sleep in your own bed in your own house. You can still go home and eat home food; you don’t have to be a vegetarian forever.

Cherish those times with your sister. Those she may sometimes feel like an annoyance, imitation is the highest form of flattery. Go easy on her and make memories; she is only going to be an innocent middle schooler for so long. Have fun. Take adventures together. Be spontaneous.

When you start following these tips, there is one very important thing that you must do. Can you guess what it is?

Have fun. Though that’s a good one; it’s not the most important piece of advice I have for you, because you will have fun anywhere and with anything. The biggest regret you will have is not taking enough pictures. They say a picture is worth a thousand words, so take pictures on top of pictures on top of pictures. There is no such thing as too many pictures, so snap away. Capture the memories, you are only in high school once.

This past week was Teacher Appreciation Week, and in honor of it, I am posting something I wrote about my current English teacher, Mr. Theriault. He is the reason I started blogging in the first place, and I couldn’t be more grateful to him for forcing me to do so.

“Young lady, do you need to change seats?” It was the first day of school my sophomore year, and I had completely forgotten to bring lined paper. I had quietly turned around to my friend sitting behind me to ask for a spare sheet so I could write our essay on the assigned reading we had over the summer. I was in shock and intimidated that I was scolded for asking for a piece of paper, especially on the first day of school. I was so scared of my new English teacher that I left class that day thinking, “Okay, breathe and relax, if it doesn’t get better, you can always switch to another class.”

Switching to another class would have been one of the biggest mistakes in my academic career, if not my life. I know it seems cliché, but it is true. I would have missed out on having an extraordinary teacher who does not just teach English, but teaches life. Shortly into the school year, amidst his ridiculously hard bi-weekly quizzes, he told us, “I am going to grade you on your effort in this class. The standard measures of competence and effort [by tests and quizzes] will have less value in my class; not so you can slack off, but so you can stretch yourselves to new levels without fear of damaging your grade because of it.” Though his class is one of the most challenging classes I have had, it is addicting; there are too many days in which I walk out of his classroom, wishing I could stay in English all day, thinking “This is way more worthwhile and meaningful than any of my other classes.”

It was in his class that I first learned how to properly read and annotate a book and was able to enjoy analyzing the syntax of Dickens’ Tale of Two Cities. It was in his class, that student presentations became something to look forward to, instead of a waste of a class period, as more often than not, they came with goodies and plenty of audience interaction which kept it interesting. It is in his class, and really only in his class, that I feel completely at home.

The wheels are always turning in Mr. Theriault’s head, thinking of how to make himself a better teacher, his lessons more fruitful, keep students more engaged, and how to make education less daunting. He is never afraid to share what he is working on with his students as well as the rest of the world through his blog and Twitter. Mr. Theriault has taught his students to share their work and thoughts, by assigning weekly blogging and a twenty percent project every year. Through blogging, I have written more this past year than ever before in the entirety of my high school career altogether. He has given us the freedom to develop our own voice, something that is so hard to teach, yet so critical for higher level writing.

Mr. Theriault is one of the only teachers I have encountered that will take time out of his class period, his precious fifty-four minutes of teaching time, to ask how students are doing. He will ask about the sports events that he couldn’t make it to and other school related topics, but he will also ask students how they are doing personally. If he sees that someone seems down, sick, or just exhausted, the first thing he says is, “Is there anything I can do to make your day better?”. From chocolate and hot tea to sharing half of his lunch, he is always there for his students. He realizes that sometimes his class isn’t the most important thing in our lives, and that our overall well-being is much more important than anything he could teach in an hour. He genuinely cares for his students.

I have been blessed to have Mr. Theriault as my English teacher both sophomore and senior year. As the number of days left until graduation dwindles down, it is a bittersweet feeling; the excitement of graduation and college combined with the sad realization that my time in Mr. Theriault’s class is coming to an end. I can see why he always has college students coming back to visit him; days in his class are treasured memories and visiting him brings them all back. Mr. Theriault makes a huge impact on student’s lives every year, and I can only dream of a world in which all teachers were as committed, caring, and compassionate as he is.

“Mr. Theriault, can we take a picture?”“Sure, how do you want to do this? Selfie style?”“Okay”He laughs. “I never take selfies”Personally, I think this one turned out great.

In the past one and a half years, I have received right around 36.4 pounds of college mail. 36.4 pounds!!!! Makes me wonder how many trees were murdered in the hopeful, but probably highly unsuccessful, quest to find applicants.

November came and the first round of applications were due. I had been writing essays all summer, but the date still crept up on me a little. Never the less, I got them all in on time, and began waiting. I have never been so excited to receive mail in my life. Eagerly, after about two weeks, every day, after practice, before setting foot inside, I would peer nervously into the mailbox, hoping that there was a big fat letter in there for me. Then one day, two big, fat, official looking acceptance letters came. It was like Christmas had come a couple of weeks early. I was beyond excited! I knew for sure that I had somewhere to go next year. What a relief.

December and January were filled with round two of applications, the holidays, and family. A couple more acceptance letters came in, and I was excited to see how my hard work was paying off. In late January, my family took a trip to visit Baylor and Vanderbilt. We all fell in love with Vanderbilt. My sister said,” Might as well buy my sweatshirt now, cause this is where you are going.” She made a bet with me before the trip, that for some reason I don’t recall making, but the bet said that if she called the school I ended up attending, I would have to buy her a sweatshirt. The school and the trip were perfect. Well, except for the fact that it was 17 degrees the entire time we were there. (Side note: I have never been so thankful for the humidity and 60 degree weather that we had when we got back home). I was so excited to have found my number one school.

February brought more waiting, scholarship essays, more thinking, and a trip to University of Denver with my dad. Denver was amazing. My dad and I had a great time touring the campus and exploring the area around Denver. It was such a nice opportunity to be able to go on a daddy daughter trip. We were both impressed with the program that DU had, and especially a selective leadership program in which, if admitted, you live and take classes on leadership with a group of 65 other students, and in the end graduate with a minor in Leadership Studies.

An Adventure Into the Mountains

Red Rocks, CO

Red Rocks, CO

April has been an interesting month. I didn’t get into Vanderbilt and Brown, both of which I was surprisingly okay with. All throughout my college search and application process, both my parents and my prayer has been that God would guide me to where He wanted me. Though it stung a little to get those first rejection letters, I decided to not look at them as rejection letters, but as God closing doors, so He can lead me to the right ones. In the end of April, my mom, sister and I took a girls trip to tour my final two schools: Lewis and Clark College and University of Puget Sound. We saw the schools, explored some state parks, and took in the sights of Washington and Oregon.

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I got to meet up with the track coach at Puget Sound to talk about the possibilities of running on his track team. I went into the meeting expecting to be rejected politely because I am a JV level athlete. Not exactly the kind of caliber that I assumed all college coaches would be looking for. I was taken aback when he said that he doesn’t look at times for incoming freshman, all he requires is a good attitude and a willingness to put the effort into getting better. He never asked for my marks and PRs. And the team was so welcoming and just plain awesome.

By the end of the trip, I had narrowed my choices down to Denver and Puget Sound. When I got home, I found out that I was wait listed for the leadership program at Denver and there was a technical difficulty with my application for the Honors program at Denver as well, so I wouldn’t know until after Commitment Day (May 1st) if I would be able to participate in those programs.

After some more research, prayer, deliberation, and lengthy conversations I decided last night on University of Puget Sound. The funny thing about it is that, I applied to UPS last-minute because I thought the campus was pretty, had heard great things about it at a college fair for it and its sister schools, and they offered me a free application. When I applied, I had no intention of actually attending. I guess the pounds of mail, billions of emails, and the numerous phone calls each year are successful; they helped put Puget Sound on the radar for me, and I couldn’t be happier about my decision.

We finally finished another Breakfast with Champions video this past week! Oh my goodness, both Erica and I never knew how long and tedious editing was. We spent at least eight hours editing this video and by the end of it, we didn’t even want to look at the final product. I wonder if that is how filmmakers feel at the premier of their movies… Anyway, we are super excited to have finished it and are excited to share it with the world. Without further ado, here is an interview with Jack White, Vietnam Veteran.

When I was growing up, my parents had a rule for my sister and I (well they had many) but the particular one had to do with commitment. They told us that we could only choose one sport/ extracurricular activity at a time. We were not the over committed family that always had 3 soccer games, a softball game, church, and a girl scout meeting all in a weekend. The most I got away with doing was soccer and girl scouts at the same time. And this was permitted only because Girl Scouts met once a week for maybe two hours at a time. It wasn’t a huge time commitment, my parents believed it was important, and I liked it. They wanted to preserve family time and their sanity. I am so grateful that they did.

But I am noticing a growing trend that concerns me. First in society as a whole; that we are way to busy. I am totally guilty of this, so I am not preaching from any pulpit, that’s for sure. Secondly, many people, especially high schoolers, are over-involved and under-committed. Now, hear me when I say that. Over-involved and under-committed; how is that even possible?

To answer that question, I ask you to reflect upon what most colleges are looking for in a competitive applicant. They want a well-rounded individual, who has played a varsity sport, been the president of a club, while being involved in two other clubs, been involved in the community, and on top of all that maintained stellar grades and achieved great test scores. I feel like they are asking for their applicants to dabble and under commit to everything, just so they can attain that “over-committed” level that colleges look for. If there was a common mantra among current high school students, I’m pretty sure it could be, “Just do it for the app.”

The frustrating thing about this over-involvement is that instead of picking a couple of things that they love and committing to them and being super involved with them, students are doing things for the label, just so they can say they are “involved” on their college application. AND COLLEGES SEEM TO ENCOURAGE THIS! Though I’m sure every admissions counselor would say, “We would much rather you be deeply involved in a few things that you are passionate about, instead of a bazillion different things”; the activities section on the common app begs to differ. There are ten different sections to fill out describing your different activities and involvements in high school. And if you only fill out four of them, that’s leaving a lot of blank space on the application that decides your scholastic fate. Thus, students are driven to over involve themselves and under commit. It is impossible to be completely committed to ten different activities, maintain good grades, have some semblance of a social life, and still sleep for the 8-9 hours recommended for teenagers.

What is created is a “Do it for the college application” attitude. And one can assume how frustrating and annoying this attitude can be. Try taking already slightly noncommittal teenagers, throwing them into ten different activities, and telling them to be committed to every one. What you get is the bare minimum, a warm body in meetings, brain only half there, constantly thinking of all the other things that have to be done. The expectation is that we are able to do it all, while in reality we have no chance.

I have a confession. Well, its more like a giant secret that I have held in so long, so close to my heart, that my parents don’t even know it. NO ONE knows it. I have always been afraid to reveal it, because of what society might think. Who am I kidding, it’s not what they will think, it is what they WILL SAY. We are so judgemental as society, and note I say we because I am totally included in this group. Though I try to work on it, it just naturally happens; I see someone and instantly categorize them based off of what they look like. It’s terrible.

Anyway, today I decided, I have had enough. I will not hide part of who I am any longer. So here it goes.

I want to be a plumber when I grow up. There I said it. I am just so fascinated by how all the pipes work together to deliver water to the various places in a house. How could someone even be smart enough to think of all that? And all the work in the dirt, mud, and water sounds right up my alley because I love the mud. And guess what? They only work when called and they get paid by the hour AND they get to charge whatever they want. Combine all of those positives and you have the recipe for my dream job.

Now, I know what you were thinking. Most people would think, “Okay, but why don’t you be a doctor or go to college first and then decide what you want to do?” Watch the spoken word video, linked below. If you are short on time, just watch the first two and a half minutes or so, otherwise I highly recommend watching the entire video. It is amazing and brings me to the verge of tears every time I watch it .

“If you can’t see anything beautiful about yourself then get a better mirror, look a little closer, stare a little longer, because there is something inside you that made you keep trying despite everyone who told you to quit” -one of my favorite quotes from the video

“They asked me what I wanted to be and then told me what not to be.” This is the epitome of the state of our education system in America. From day one of kindergarten, the expectation of the student is that they will grow up, go to high school, take a full load of AP classes, go to a prestigious college, and then become a doctor, engineer, or lawyer. The driving force behind every class, lecture, presentation, and guidance appointment in high school is to prepare students for college. Look even in recent news, and the Presidency is pushing for higher education(college of some type) for everyone. The attitude that comes out of this is that it is absurd for someone not to go to college. Completely absurd, in their minds.

Well, what happens when everyone starts going to college like society is encouraging and calling for? Many things. One, we lose people going into the job fields that don’t require a college degree, but still are necessary to keep society functioning. For example, my dad doesn’t have a college degree. Yet, he is a fire captain and has worked in the fire service for 17 years. He is on a National Disaster Management Team and gets sent all over the Western United States to manage the resources(people and machines) when fires and other natural disasters occur. He may not know how to help me with my AP Calculus homework, but he is one of the smartest people I know. So, remind me why everyone MUST go to college? So they can do well in the world? To that I ask what is the definition of doing well in the world, being happy, having money, or something else? It all depends on the person, whom defines how well they are doing for themselves.

Second, if everyone goes to college, then does it not just become a continuation of high school, and the only way to be competitive in the job market will now be to get a Masters or a PhD? It doesn’t make sense to encourage every student to go to college, putting themselves in debt, when every job does not require a college degree.

In my case, as I do not actually dream of being a plumber, I need to go to college to pursue a job in the field that I desire. I hope to major in Biology with an emphasis on genetics, because, in my opinion, genetics is the medicine of the future. Though I do not want to be a doctor, I do need to go to college in order to even have a chance of getting a job in genetics.

Simply put, we need to stop instilling in our kids that the only way to succeed in life is by going to college. There are other ways to succeed, and we need to be open to them. Some of the biggest advancements in our history have come from relatively “unschooled” people. Maybe its time we stop focusing on standards, and believing that without school education is impossible, and realizing that school isn’t the be all end all that it’s often cracked up to be. There are several ways to get to the one end that we all desire- a happy life.

For my English class innovation project my friends and I are documenting war stories from veterans. (I explain it in better detail in my Breakfast With Champions post.) We have a blog called http://breakfastwithchampions.wordpress.com/ and a Vietnam veteran named Jack White found our intro video on that blog and commented that he would love to meet with us. We met up with him this past weekend and he told us some amazing stories. It was great to hear from his perspective about things that my textbook could never tell me.